So I got some work in today. Pretty exciting stuff. Got the crank, main and rod journals measured, got the bearings in, got the mains plastigauged, and worked on the shaft endplay.

All mains plastiguaged to about .0018"-.0020"(ish). The shop said they were honed to .0025" but I think they look good.


Problems started with the thrust endplay. I started out by just going through the spiral torque sequence and I checked out the endplay...
It's supposed to be like .0040" but I could only get about 0.0006". What the hell right? I then seated the thrust bearings correctly (loosen thrust cap, hit crank forward and backward, pry crank forward while tightening thrust cap) and that got me a few more tenths to about .0010" but that's was still pretty far off.
I took off the cap off and measured the endplay. Ended up getting about .0046". Damn near perfect. So tightening down the cap was causing it to tighten up.

I took out the thrust bearing in the cap and set it on the crank where it would be if it was sitting in the cap.

Took a feeler gauge and tried to see how much space was between the bearing and thrust surface and I could barely get a .0015" in there.

So then I measure the bottom one where I get the good thrust endplay

and I could fit the .0040" in there pretty easily and the .0050" was a little tight.

So that means the top half of the thrust bearing must be a little too big.
I then got some 1000 grit and WD40 and worked the side of the thrust exposed while in the cap in a figure 8 to open up the thrust on the cap side. Worked it in slow increments and it increased to .0018" end play and then I'm at about .0030" end play.

I then go back and check the same way with feelers to see how much space I have and oddly enough, now I can fit a 0.0060" feeler in the cap half of the bearing that I had been working. Seems like I would've gotten that .0046" from the bottom half if there was that extra space on the cap side.

Any thoughts? I'm close since I have about .0030" of endplay as it stands but I don't want to keep on opening up the top one if I don't have to. And yes, .0030" is with seating the thrust correctly.


And I'm probably going to proceed with the parts I have now and the cam as it stands because of time constraints. I still have quite a bit left to do on this engine without getting hung up on the very beginning of assembly

69 Buick Special Deluxe. Intercooled Turbo Chevy 250 @ 15psi on a stock long block. It's kinda fast.